


Ink My Skin

by iwillpaintasongforlou



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Paparazzi, Punk Louis, Punk!Louis, happy ending though I promise, louis gets a little sad and lost in the middle, media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:49:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillpaintasongforlou/pseuds/iwillpaintasongforlou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis shows up for tour with too many tattoos to count and a few too many piercings to ignore. Some people love it. Some people hate it. Louis can't figure out which side he's on, until of course he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ink My Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meggiewrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meggiewrites/gifts).



It’s been a month since Louis Tomlinson dropped off of the face of the earth.

Not _actually,_ of course- all of the important people knew where he was, like his family and his brothers. It’s just that Louis was taking every precaution in the world to make himself a ghost in this last break before tour. It was all part of his master plan, you see. They had an entire month off before the start of tour, with no promo, no recording, no awards shows… nothing.

Someone from management probably should have worried when Louis went off the grid, though. Louis Tomlinson is _never_ quiet… unless he’s making trouble.

Harry was the first one to see him. His Harry, poor Harry who he had ordered to stay in any city not containing one Louis Tomlinson for the entire last month.  “It’ll be good for us to have some time apart,” Louis lied to his love. “You’ve got friends in London to quit neglecting, I’ve got… you know, stuff. To do.”

It hadn’t been an easy sell, but in the end Louis was impossible to say no to. Harry hadn’t seen his face in over a month, and now there he was, waiting on the sidewalk in front of their hideaway, twiddling his thumbs and hoping every car that came around the corner would be the taxi bringing his Louis to him.

Ordinarily Louis might have given the street a once-over as he climbed out into the fresh air, just to make certain that their secret home was still a secret, but today he had better things to watch. Like the way Harry’s mouth was popping open, his eyes going wide, breath stalling as he took in the unfamiliar man standing before him.

This time, trouble had come in the form of tattoos from wrist to shoulder on his right arm, a single sprawling piece on the inside of his left, and a scattering of new ink on his chest and neck. Trouble was eyeliner, was snakebites, was the smattering of other piercings that took his once-fresh face and turned it to something a little darker, a little bolder, a little more beautiful.

Harry couldn’t seem to do more than grin and mumble “oh my god” on repeat, but Louis couldn’t keep the smirk off of his face. Yes, he was back. And he was better than ever.

………………….

It was probably a good thing that their first concert wasn’t until the following week, since it was days before Harry could peel his eyes off of Louis for more than the space of half a minute. “This is why you wouldn’t send me proper pictures,” he mumbled as if to himself. “You kept sending me stupid pictures of your knee or your shoelaces, but never any pictures of _you.”_

“To be fair, I sent you plenty of pictures of my cock,” Louis reasoned, “so I don’t see how you can complain.”

“And you never wanted to Skype with me, either,” Harry pouted, unaffected by Louis’ logic. “I’ve been your boyfriend for practically a century now and you didn’t even let me in on your fun.”

Despite how his lip jutted out perilously, Harry wasn’t too hurt to fall into Louis arms when they opened, cuddling up to his side on the bed. “I only did it so I could see your little face when the cab pulled up,” smirked Louis. “You looked like you were about to pass out.”

“Or come in my pants.”

Louis’ laugh shook both of their bodies. “So I take it you like the look, then?”

“All those times I tried to get you to wear eyeliner in the bedroom, and you really have to ask?”

The mood in the room kind of shifts after that, and it’s a while before Louis’ mouth or his head are free enough to reply.

When they have the boys over for dinner that weekend and Louis comes out to casually join them at the table in just a tank top, it’s hard to tell what’s strongest- Louis’ amusement, Harry’s pride, or the wonderment of the other boys.

“Are those real?” Niall is first to blurt, leaning across the table to swipe his thumb across the lion in the crook of Louis’ left arm like it might come off if he rubs enough. “Jesus, Tommo!”

Zayn is too busy lifting Louis’ tank top up to peer around it to comment much other than a cursory, “These are sick, man.” He’s lost in the lines and the shading already.

Liam, on the other hand, has his eyes locked on the studs adorning Louis’ mouth, nose, brow. “You’ve actually done it,” he blurts with a startled laugh. “You’ve _actually_ gone and become punk!Louis.”

“Well you didn’t think I was teasing, did you?” Louis said casually, swiping Zayn’s abandoned beer and taking a swig. “I always said those punk edits were wicked. It was just a matter of time.”

“All at once, though? You’ve got balls, mate,” Zayn said with a shake of his head as he made his way to the kitchen to replace his drink. “Have you had a breakdown or something?”

“If you’re asking me if I’m crazy, you should have gotten that answer years ago.”

“It’s just so sudden,” Niall supplied, still examining Louis’ face and arms with fascination. “One minute you’re Louis, the next you’re…”

There was nothing but mischief in Louis’ eyes. “Still Louis. Just with a little more ink, that’s all.”

Management, of course, took it horribly.

“We’re going to have to redefine the whole band’s image,” one rep fretted. “This changes _everything._ Your brand is still partially pop, barely getting to be rock, and you’re decked out in tattoos and eyeliner-”

“You don’t have to do anything to the band’s image,” sighed Louis with a roll of his eyes. “It’s been coming for a while now. I really don’t think anyone but you is going to be that shocked.”

“Louis, this is unprecedented. There’s no telling how the fans will react-”

“We’ll just have to wait and see, then, won’t we?”

Because this was the moment Louis had been waiting for; their first public appearance in a month was the first show of tour. They would get on that stage and the whole world would see him, right then and there, and be his judge. There was nervous... and then there was _this._

He could feel his heart pounding as they crouched beneath the stage on the lift platforms. Someone nearby was giving a countdown until they would pop up, but he could barely hear over the buzz of the crowd. Ten seconds, and he could feel the blood rushing through his veins. Seven seconds, and he was electricity. Five, and he was on fire.

Three seconds to go, and his head got quiet.

Two seconds to go, and the world did.

One second to go, and he was born for this.

And then he was being rocketed upwards, the spotlights blinding and the crowd roaring, fans screaming and crying and calling their names. The flash of the cameras made it hard to tell, but he thought that maybe all eyes were on him.

………………….

What Louis never counted on was the constant noise of it. Noise he could handle- when _hadn’t_ there been noise since all of this had started three and a half years ago? -but this was a new beast entirely. It was fans, it was media, it was _everyone,_ constantly buzzing about this new Louis Tomlinson.

Even the official press releases kept turning to him. “Louis!” called some reporter from a Venezuelan magazine he hadn’t bothered to listen to the name of. “Tell us about your new look!”

Niall could be seen on the edge of Louis’ vision rolling his eyes like a little shit. Louis wished he could, too. “I think it’s quite mild, very straight-laced. You could definitely bring a boy like me home to your mother, wouldn’t you say, lads?”

Everyone goes along with the joke like he hasn’t made it before, and Harry is still too quick to grin at it. Management will probably skin him for it; Louis throws in a sassy wink to the reporter to make sure the punishment is worth it.

“What inspired the change, though?” came the reply.

“I just liked it, that’s all,” Louis said honestly. “It’s not like some huge thing, it’s just… I dunno. Felt like wearing some eyeliner, so I wore some eyeliner.”

“And what do the fans think?”

Liam jumped in to save the day. “I think it’s safe to say that Louis’ pretty popular nowadays!”

Which, for the most part, was true. There was a constant stream of compliments coming at him left and right at every meet and greet, every concert, every mobbing on the street. #welovepunklouis trended worldwide on twitter for over 24 hours. There were entire portions of the fandom who were out of their minds with happiness that the one thing they’d spent years hoping for had finally, beautifully come true.

Louis tries not to let the other boys know that he sees the nasty tweets that fill his feed every day. Harry finds out, of course- he catches Louis hunched over his laptop at 3am one too many times to pass it off as nothing. He takes one look at the screen, closes the lid and leads the fragile older boy back to the warmth of their bed. It’s safer there.

“What are you trying to compensate for?” shouts a pap in Brazil. “You can’t hide behind all those piercings!”

“It’s not a fucking mask!” Louis snaps back before a bodyguard shuffles him into the building. He doesn’t stop thinking about it for hours to come.

“There are always going to be stupid people with stupid opinions,” Niall tells him randomly one day when they’re on their way to sound check. He says it quietly, so only Louis can hear. “You know that, right?”

“I know.”

He does know, just like he knows that it’s stupid to expect that things might get better if he takes out a few of the piercings. There were a lot of them anyways- who even needed that many? Probably made his face look stupid and lopsided.

No one said anything, not until Louis climbed into the van one morning with a completely fresh face. Harry twisted around in his seat and laid his chin on the partition that was meant to keep the two of them apart. “You alright, babe?” he asked quietly.

Louis’ eyes flicked up to take in Zayn’s sleeping form, the headphones in Niall’s ears, the phone Liam was glued to. “I’m fine,” he replied just as softly. “Why?”

“No reason.” It’s a lie and they both know it. Harry pauses for a minute before trying again. “Did Lou finally convince you to let her do your face?”

“Huh?”

“Your makeup. You don’t have any eyeliner on today. Are you going to let Lou do it for you now?”

Louis won’t even meet his boyfriend’s eyes. “Oh. No, I guess I just forgot. It’s not that important.”

But it _is_ important, just like it’s important when he’s fresh-faced the next day, too, and when he has Lou dye his hair back to it’s natural soft brown, no shocking red streaks to be seen. It’s important in the same way that it matters how he’s wearing sweaters in springtime, pulling the collars up and the sleeves down until the beautiful lines and curves that lace his skin are hidden away from the public eye.

They all try not to say anything. Harry tries only to open his mouth to say how beautiful Louis, to tell him how lovely each blossom of ink looks, to kiss all of the places where jewelry once interrupted the smooth planes of his face.

Louis doesn’t seem to hear him, though. He brushes every kind word aside, wandering off like he can avoid the issue if he just puts distance between himself and the speaker. Sometimes he wanders to the next room; sometimes he wanders across the city and finds himself in a restaurant on the other side of Stockholm.

There’s a girl with pink hair at the table next to him that won’t stop eyeing him- which is really not all that unusual, considering, so Louis does his best to ignore. She isn’t hyperventilating when she speaks to him, though.

“Where’d you get your ink done?”

“A bit of everywhere,” Louis answers honestly, mostly because he’s too startled by the question to lie. It takes him a second to realize that his jacket is on the table next to him, leaving his arms exposed to the world for the first time in a month. It takes less time than that for him to instinctively try to cover them up.

Pink-haired girl raises an eyebrow. “By more than one artist?”

“Erm- yeah. I sorta just got them as I felt inspired to. Mostly in America. A couple in Madrid.”

“You’re brave,” the girl complimented. “All of my art is done by the same guy. I don’t think I’d trust anyone else to ink me.”

It starts to sink in that she has just as many piercings and tattoos as Louis- maybe more. Her shoulders are draped with a dragon, her forearm a length of flame and her ear dotted with a neat little line of silver hoops. She’s eyeing the empty holes in Louis’ skin with sharp attention.

“Punk by day, normal by night?” she jokes, her smile kind. “It’s usually the other way around.”

“I try to be normal all the time, actually,” mumbles Louis, suddenly wishing that he were somewhere with fewer keen eyes to watch him.

“Why the fuck would you want that?”

“I’m… ‘punk’ is not the image I’m meant to have,” Louis carefully admits when her gaze doesn’t let up. She obviously has no idea who he is- how bad can it be, to tell her the truth?

The girl nods, slowly at first, and then firm nods of comprehension. “Gotcha. But- did you like the way you looked? When you first got all your ink and stuff. Did you feel comfortable?”

“Yes,” Louis replied, and it’s the easiest answer he’s given all night.

“I don’t want to tell you how to live your life,” she began, “but if that’s true, fuck what you’re meant to be. If ink and piercings is who you are, be it. No one gets to tell you who to be. Just be happy.”

It’s too simple of advice, because she doesn’t know him or what it’s like to have tens of millions of eyes on you every second of the day. She can’t possibly understand… but when she’s paid her bill and left and Louis is still sitting there with the wheels spinning in his head, it feels a bit like she does.

………………….

“Louis! Louis! Look over here!”

The paparazzi found him this time, out in the streets of Copenhagen, where he’d slipped security and wandered off in the general direction of a place he thought he remembered having a good draft once. As soon as there was one, there were ten, until every inch of space around him was a camera lens, a microphone, or a bloodthirsty face.

“Louis! When are you leaving for Paris?”

“What, so you can pop in and say hello at the airport?” Louis snorted. “Fat chance. Snoop around like a proper journalist if you like, find out that way.”

“Do you hate paps?”

“Only when they ask stupid questions.”

“Are they the reason you’re scared to go punk anymore?”

The last question comes from somewhere in the back of the crowd, but Louis doesn’t have to see a face to be stopped dead in his tracks. The mob around him stops too, pressing impossibly closer. “Excuse me?”

“You finally started listening to everyone and stopped with the punk bullshit. Did you stop to save your career?”

There are either icicles or a fire growing in Louis’ stomach, an uncomfortable burn that forces the words out of his mouth instead of keeping them inside where they belong. “First of all,” he spat, “you can take your opinions about my personal style and fuck right off. How I choose to dress and what I choose to do to my body are _my_ choices, and you don’t have permission to editorialize on that.”

A short little man with a moustache and a camera pushes his way to the front and looks Louis in the eye now. “But as soon as it started affecting your career, you were too much of a coward to ‘be yourself’ anymore.”

“I’m still exactly who the fuck I am, thank you,” Louis quickly returned. “The fans who support us don’t give a shit how I dress, and they certainly don’t try to make me feel like less of a human because I like tattoos, or eyeliner, or putting fucking holes in my lip.”

“Whoa, whoa, getting a little irritable here-!”

“No, fuck you,” Louis snapped, too far gone to care about the shit he’d catch for talking like this in the middle of a circle of cameras. Some things are more important than playing nice. “Fuck all of you for trying to make me feel bad about what I like. I’m done bloody catering to what the world likes- I’ve got my mates, and my family, and they’re the only ones who get to share a fucking opinion. So if that’s not you, clear out of my way.”

He doesn’t stop seeing red until he’s back in the hotel room an hour later, slowly unwinding to the sounds of fans cheering somewhere beneath his window. After a while he finds his way to the bed and curls up between the sheets for the best sleep he’s had in a while.

It’s Harry’s hand on his forehead that wakes him up. He knows it even before he opens his eyes, knows exactly how big and how warm and how soft those familiar hands are on his skin. The first thing he sees when his eyes flutter open are green ones staring right back down at him.

“You’ve got your piercings back in,” Harry whispers, and it’s impossible to keep the smile off his lips. “You’re wearing eyeliner.”

“Yeah. Had a bit of an epiphany today, I guess,” Louis smiled softly back.

“Saw that. You made the evening gossip shows.”

“Uh-oh.”

“They had to censor about every other word, but what I could hear sounded really good, though.” Harry’s dimple is as cheeky as it’s ever been. Louis wants to kiss it.

He does, just before he tugs Harry down to lay with him in the tangle of blankets. “I’m just tired of being told who I can be, is all. I already don’t get to tell everyone how much I love you. Fuck anyone who wants to tell me I can’t love tattoos, too.”

“Good. I’m glad. Fuck them.”

“You approve that message, then?”

“Very much so,” Harry hummed. “Now I get my punk!Louis back, right?”

“Right. Maybe I’ll get even punker. I’ve still got some unmarked skin left, after all.”

“You could get ‘fuck the paparazzi’ tattooed across your knuckles.”

“Don’t want to get too reckless. What about your birthday on my shoulder? Roman numerals or sommat.”

Harry twists around to kiss the spot in question. “Right. Because that wouldn’t be reckless at all.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Louis smiles. He reaches up to capture one of Harry’s curls between his fingers, then tuck it behind his ear. “I’m going to buy you a flower crown tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You can be the flowerchild to my punk. The fans will eat it up,” he giggles. Harry giggles too.

Right before he falls asleep with his arms around Harry, Louis can remember thinking, _nothing matters but this._ And that, in the end, is the most important thing he knows.

**Author's Note:**

> Thewayshesnot is the bomb and helped me figure out where this is going. Also Meggie is 20 now and I hope lots of good things happen to her cause she deserves them and more. :) :) :)


End file.
